Devon Knowles material centred practice, which includes sculpture, installation, two-dimensional and public work, focuses on the production methods of objects and their materials. It specifically considers how together they influence and form the language that surrounds them. From coloured glass, concrete, steel and aluminum to denim fabric, paper spitballs and street detritus, the varied histories, economies, and social meanings of diverse materials and processes are unpredictably combined.
By moving these elements from their expected and everyday contexts, her work heightens our appreciation of their properties and capacities. In working and reworking material, using traditional and contemporary fabrication and craft methods, a rich language of the relationship of material and method emerges. As she engages with theories of perception, optical effects, and tactility, alongside the direct act of making, Knowles encourages the viewer to access her work from a shared intimacy and sympathetic attentiveness.
She lives and works in Hamilton, Ontario Canada situated on the the traditional lands of the Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabeg, Huron-Wendat, Neutral, and Erie. The city is also covered by the Between the Lakes Purchase, which was signed in 1792 between the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation and the British Crown. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally and is in public and private collections. She is represented by Equinox Gallery and is Assistant Professor (Sculpture) at the University of Guelph.